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Old 05-24-2013, 10:03 PM
 
2 posts, read 3,821 times
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My husband has been given a job opportunity in Grant County. We currently live north of Seattle, near Mill Creek. Financially, this would be great for our family. The new salary combined with the low cost of living in Grant county is something we can't find here in Seattle. It looks as though we'd be considered extremely well off for the area, so we would have our choice of town and neighborhood. I grew up in very small towns, so the size/population does not bother me. I'm fine with lack of shopping, night life, etc. My main concern is the culture and attitudes of the people there and if my family will fit in. We are fiscally conservative but socially liberal. I have two teenaged daughters who might label themselves "hipsters". It is very important to me that they are able to make friends at the local high schools and jr highs. Are there towns that are safer than others? More liberal than others? Are there neighborhoods of those areas that we should consider or avoid?

We are pretty sure it's going to be either Ephrata or Moses Lake so any particulars on those towns would be great.

Thank you so much to anyone that replies. It's difficult to judge a community by a weekend trip or two.
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Old 05-25-2013, 01:26 AM
 
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I live in Ephrata. I have lived in Ephrata, Moses Lake, and Soap Lake. Don't move to soap lake.

I like Ephrata, I grew up here. It's not a metropolis, but you can find enough stuff to do. The schools are good. Ephrata tends to be a "richer" area than much of grant county, so the kids can get a bit snobbish. The rich kids are the most popular, followed by the athletes.

We have good water, I know that sounds like a dumb thing to add, but it's not chlorinated and tastes great.

You can walk anywhere in town if you're reasonably fit.

Most of Easter WA is conservative, but they're not running people out of town. People are generally polite and quiet if they don't like someone's views. My sister is an atheist hippy with dreadlocks and owns her own business.

Ephrata has some drug activity (I think it's better than most of grant county, but if your kids ever want to get drugs, they will), but other than that, it's a pretty safe town. You can walk down the street in the middle of the night without worrying, and I can't remember the last time I locked my car doors. I can't really think of and truly "bad" neighborhoods.

If you end up in Moses Lake, stay away from "the Base", as far as neighborhoods. Drugs and crime are rampant. There are a few others, but I don't know Moses Lake as well. Much better options for shopping and eating out though. Ephrata has pizza, mexican food, a couple asian food places (neither are very good), McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, and 2 locally owned burger joints. But you're an hour away from Wenatchee, which has most things you can find in big cities.
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Old 05-25-2013, 07:31 AM
 
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,165 posts, read 80,309,828 times
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I have a friend from Moses Lake and whenever he comes back from visiting family he talks about trying to get them out of there, because the drugs and property crime have gotten so bad. I would do a lot of research before accepting any job offer in that area, to make sure the additional salary and lower cost of living are worth it. There's always reasons for low cost of living.
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Old 05-25-2013, 10:38 PM
 
89 posts, read 230,171 times
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Moses Lake and Ephrata are awful.

This thread is required reading if you're thinking of moving to that area:
//www.city-data.com/forum/washi...oses-lake.html
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Old 05-26-2013, 04:38 PM
 
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My wife and I have been living in Moses Lake for 3 years now. Originally from Portland so living in a much smaller community has been an adjustment.

While not perfect Moses Lake has been growing on us. The city is growing fast. It increased its population something like 25% in 5 years or so. This is also evident with all the new houses that are being built in town. Just near our house 2 new developments are going in. There is a lack of shopping but I imagine that will come with the increased growth (we just got a Petco, Ross and Famous Footwear).

The lack of cultural amenities has taken some getting use to although the museum in town does have the occasional speaker/event.

I do really like living a couple blocks from the lake, a park and a boat launch. It seems like all my neighbors have boats, jet skis, Canoes or other water recreational vehicles. Just took a walk down to the lake today and it was quite busy with people fishing and enjoying the water. Also the parks and rec department is pretty active here and in the summer there are weekly movies in the park (lots of parks in ML) and the occasional concert.

Housing is pretty cheap here. Was able to get a very nice place in a great location for much less than 200k 2 years ago. I would echo a previous poster to not live near the airport/community college if you chose to relocate to Moses Lake. There are many, much nicer places to live.

Hopefully Moses Lake continues to grow and acquire more amenities in the future.
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Old 05-27-2013, 09:08 AM
509
 
6,312 posts, read 6,956,200 times
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Ephrata is much better than Moses Lake.

Ephrata is a much wealthier community. Read the book "The Millionaire Next Door". Be nice to people with old pickups. Very few people display their money is Ephrata.

Both communities were small towns at one time with a live and let live attitude. I find that liberal communities VERY INTOLERANT of people with conservative values. However, most conservative communities are tolerant of "different" people.

There have been A LOT of people moving over from the coast in the past twenty years. AND THAT BUNCH is INTOLERANT no matter what their orientation. It must be in the rain water!!

Here in Wenatchee, we had right leaning "migrants" try to kick out the gay teachers in the school system. Meanwhile the left leaning "migrants" were upset that Wenatchee was rated one of the greenest town in America despite the fact we do NOT have mandatory recycling.

You will do fine if you adopt a live and let live attitude. Support the community you live in and nobody will care about your sexual orientation, politics, or lack of money.

The library services are provided by North Central Regional Library for both communities and the surrounding four counties.

The entire area is booming due to discovery by BMW and others about the GREEN (environmental orientation) nature of eastern Washington and the high tech infrastructure.

In the long run, Moses Lake will continue to get the industrial development and Ephrata will continue to to get the state offices, PUD employees etc.

Both communities are served by Grant County PUD fiber network. So be sure to get a local company for your telephone, cable and internet. The high tech stuff is provided by local companies. The large corporate companies are still in the 20th century. We use LocalTel in Wenatchee and highly recommend them, but there are probably good companies in Ephrata. LocalTel does serve Ephrata.

You don't need the 1Gbps service....the rest of the country is so far behind central Washington that most web sites do not take advantage of fiber network. The 100 mbps up and down is the basic level of service and well worth the $40/month. It is MUCH cheaper if you bundle with phone or cable service.
For example, you can get a phone line for $4 a month additional cost.

I have only been to Mill Creek once.......you will like living in Ephrata if you have lived in a small town before.

Last edited by 509; 05-27-2013 at 09:31 AM..
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Old 05-27-2013, 12:58 PM
 
4,472 posts, read 3,802,018 times
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I don't know much about Ephrata, but I have heard good things about it. I have driven through a few times and it seems like a nice little town. I am more familiar with Moses Lake. It is bigger than Ephrata with about 20,000 people. Its a great area as far as recreation-especially during the summer. There is the lake, the sand dunes for dirt biking or camping, potholes reservoir is just south of Moses Lake, and great areas for hunting or wildlife spotting. The wildlife refuge is right by the Potholes reservoir. Its a farming community with a lot of migrant workers and there is gang activity. You will occasionally hear about drive by shootings there. However, I think it just depends on the neighborhood. I have family that live right on the lake, and they have never had any problems with crime. They also graduated from the High School and they turned out fine.
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Old 05-28-2013, 01:53 AM
 
2 posts, read 3,821 times
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Thank you to everyone who replied. It looks like we've decided to take the job and make the move. I am still on the fence when it comes to Moses Lake vs. Ephrata. The thing that worries me most about Moses Lake is the amount of students at the high school (2200). This seems to be super high. We live in a densely populated area now and my daughter's school only has 1600 students. On the plus side, Moses Lake has a lot of beautiful homes for sale that offer the square footage we need for our 5 person family. We did visit over the weekend to get an idea of the types of neighborhoods we could afford to live in and I feel confident that we would be able to live in the quiet/safe areas.

Ephrata, on the other hand, has less populated schools but it seems like the real estate market is lacking. It looks like most of the homes are older and small. Maybe we'd have to buy a lot and have a house built? I grew up in a town similar to Ephrata so I find it more appealing than Moses Lake, but the rest of my family prefers Moses Lake. I have to admit that lake is pretty awesome! We are really excited to buy a boat!

My kids want to go to the more populated schools because they think there will be more to do as far as clubs and classes. I would prefer that they attend the smaller schools. However, I worry that the smaller school could be too tight knit and not accepting of new kids that don't fit the small town mold. If that makes sense..

Also, I do agree that it's as likely for the "open minded" cities to be judgmental of conservatives. Personally, I lean more conservative but as I mentioned before we are socially liberal and non-religious. I've also lived in Texas and Alaska. I was mainly concerned with my kids fitting in and making friends. They are very creative and mostly enjoy art, drama clubs, and choir. I'm going to call both high schools to find out what type of after school clubs they have. Hopefully we'll make this decision soon.

I did read the other thread on here about the woman who moved from Georgia to Moses Lake. It seemed to me that everyone gave her a lot of helpful advice but that it just didn't work out for her family. I really wish she would have explained why, but her situation could have gone wrong for so many reasons that I don't want to judge the city based on that.
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